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May 12 marked the 100th anniversary of Katharine Hepburn’s birth. Other actors and actresses may have had longer careers, but none ever stayed at the top for as long as Hepburn did in her remarkable 62 year screen career. That career spanned from 1932’s A Bill of Divorcement to 1994’s made-for-TV One Christmas neither of which are currently available on DVD (One Christmas had a brief release, but is currently unavailable).

To commemorate the occasion, Warner Bros., is releasing six of Hepburn’s less remembered films on DVD today. Of the six, 1979’s made-for-television movie The Corn Is Green is by far the best. This was an amazing achievement on several levels. It is that rare remake of a much loved film that is even better than the original. It is also one of the rare TV movies that plays like a theatrical event.

The part of Miss Moffat in The Corn Is Green is the only role that Hepburn and her rival for the title of “Greatest Screen Actress”, Bette Davis, both played. Davis was 37 and a bit young to be playing the middle-aged schoolteacher who deplores the conditions she finds in a Welsh mining village. The part had been played to great acclaim by Ethel Barrymore, then in her early sixties, in her last Broadway triumph. Hepburn at 72 was would seem a bit old to play the part, but you would never know it from the fervor with which she sinks into her Emmy-nominated role. It would have made sense for Warner Bros. to release the 1945 Davis version at the same time, but perhaps we’ll get that next year in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Miss Davis’ birth.

The Corn Is Green, in either version, compares favorably to How Green Was My Valley and Sons and Lovers, two other screen classics set in coal mining villages.

The other Hepburn films being released today are Morning Glory, Sylvia Scarlet, Dragon Seed, Without Love and Undercurrent.

Morning Glory, which was Hepburn’s third film and the one for which she won her first Oscar, is the story of an aspiring actress that parallels Hepburn’s own early career. She’s good in it, but was even better in her next film, the definitive screen version of Little Women. That film is, for many (including me), the film that should have won her that first Oscar.

Sylvia Scarlet was arguably the nadir of both Hepburn and director George Cukor’s careers. The tale of a girl masquerading as a boy was nothing new. Hepburn is not convincing as either a boy or a girl in the film. Her comic timing is completely off. It would take Howard Hawks to teach her how to play comedy two years later in his film Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant, the one participant in Sylvia Scarlet who emerges unscathed.

Dragon Seed, from Pearl S. Buck’s novel about the 1937 Japanese invasion of China, was an attempt on MGM’s part to duplicate the success of The Good Earth all the way down to the casting of Caucasians as Asians in all the principal roles. Hepburn, Walter Huston and most of her other co-stars are horribly miscast. Only Oscar-nominated Aline MacMahon manages some modicum of believability.

Without Love was the third of the nine films Hepburn made with Spencer Tracy and the second comedy. It suffers in comparison with the great Hepburn-Tracy comedies, Woman of the Year, Adam’s Rib, Pat and Mike and Desk Set, but Lucille Ball has one of her best roles in support.

Hepburn’s only attempt at film noir came with the film Undercurrent. The film co-starred Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum and is highly regarded in some circles, but you really have to suspend disbelief to accept Hepburn as the kind of passive creature Joan Fontaine excelled at in Rebecca and Suspicion.

Many of Hepburn’s great films and performances have previously been made available on DVD. They include these gems:

Little Women, David O. Zelznick’s last production for RKO, directed by Cukor, remains the definitive version of the Louisa May Alcott classic mainly because of its sharp pacing and the combined talents of an extraordinary cast, not the least of whom is Miss Hepburn as Jo. You also get Joan Bennett as Amy, Jean Parker as Beth, Frances Dee as Meg, Douglass Montgomery as Laurie, Henry Stephenson as Mr. Laurence, Paul Lukas as Prof. Bhaer, Spring Byington as Marmee and the incomparable Edna May Oliver as Aunt March. The film won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Based on Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Alice Adams won Hepburn her second Oscar nomination. Many at the time thought she should’ve won over Bette Davis in Dangerous. She was definitely at her best as the small town wallflower opposite Fred MacMurray.

Stage Door, directed by Gregory LaCava on the heels of My Man Godfrey, is generally considered a drama, but its best moments are the comic ones. Hepburn more than holds her own against such masters of comedy as Ginger Rogers, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, Adolphe Menjou and Ann Miller. The film features the classic line “the calla lilies are in bloom again, such a strange flower…” which has been mimicked heavily ever since. It received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Supporting Actress for Andrea Leeds. La Cava won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Director.

Bringing Up Baby is one of the screen’s great screwball comedies. Hepburn and Cary Grant tickle the funny bone like no one else, and are just as delightfully supported by May Robson and Charlie Ruggles. According to Hawks, Hepburn took on-set lessons in comedy timing from featured player Walter Catlett. She was obviously a fast learner.

Cukor’s Holiday is a remake of the 1930 film from the play written by Philip Barry, the author of Hepburn’s most famous stage turn in The Philadelphia Story. She and Grant again make movie magic. Lew Ayres gives perhaps the film’s best performance as Hepburn’s burned out younger brother. Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon supply most of the comedy.

The Philadelphia Story, also directed by Cukor, won James Stewart an Oscar (mainly for his body of work) in 1940. Hepburn, who won her third Oscar nomination for this, and Grant are the film’s true stars with Stewart, Ruth Hussey, Virginia Weidler, Mary Nash and Roland Young all turning in superb supporting performances. The roles played by Grant, Stewart and Hussey were played on stage by Joseph Cotten, Van Heflin and Shirley Booth, none of whom were yet film stars. The film won Oscar nominations for Hussey and Cukor as well as Hepburn and Stewart, and for Best Picture. Hepburn won her only New York Film Critics Award for this performance.

George Stevens’ Woman of the Year was the first collaboration between Hepburn and Spencer Tracy and right from the start their teaming proved magical. She’s a fashion editor. He’s a sports writer. And you get the picture. Hepburn won her fourth Oscar nomination and the film won for its screenplay by Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner Jr.

Adam’s Rib, again directed by Cukor, was the sixth Hepburn-Tracy film and their best since Woman of the Year. An uproarious comedy in which Hepburn plays a lawyer defending a wife accused of killing her husband while Tracy plays the D.A. who must prosecute the case. Judy Holliday, David Wayne, Jean Hagen, Tom Ewell and Hope Emerson are also quite wonderful in support. Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin received Oscar nominations for their screenplay.

The African Queen, which is tied up in rights disputes, is available only as an import DVD. Reportedly the film needs restoration which must be approved by director John Huston’s estate, but they allegedly want too much money. This is the one for which Humphrey Bogart won an Oscar for basically playing a caricature of himself. He’s good, but Hepburn, earning her fifth Oscar nomination, playing a missionary funneled through Eleanor Roosevelt, is the real joy. Huston was nominated for both his direction and screenplay. The film was co-written with James Agee.

Cukor’s Pat and Mike winningly recaptures the magic of Adam’s Rib, with Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin again winning an Oscar nomination for their screenplay in this romp presenting Hepburn as a championship golfer and Tracy as her trainer.

Summertime presents Hepburn in the middle-aged spinster period of her career which began with The African Queen. It is my favorite Hepburn performance, for which she received her sixth Oscar nomination playing a thirty-five-year-old mid-western secretary who spends her life savings on a trip to Venice before settling into middle-age spinsterhood. Stunningly photographed by Jack Hildyard and directed by David Lean. Lean won the New York Film Critics Award as well as an Oscar nomination for his fine work on the last of his “small” films.

The Rainmaker, directed by Joseph Anthony, won Hepburn, still in middle-aged spinster mode, her seventh Oscar nomination. Visibly too old for the part of the plain Texas girl, she nevertheless shines in the film’s numerous emotional scenes.

The Joseph L. Mankiewicz drama Suddenly, Last Summer presents Hepburn in what is essentially a supporting role (one of extremely few such supporting turns) as Elizabeth Taylor’s mean aunt. Hepburn plots to have Taylor lobotomized rather than reveal the truth about her son’s death in this over-heated Tennessee Williams melodrama. The ensuing fireworks were enough to win Taylor her third Oscar nomination and Hepburn her eighth.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, directed by Sidney Lumet, presents Hepburn in a devastating portrayal of Eugene O’Neill’s drug addicted mother for which she won her ninth Oscar nomination. She and her three co-stars, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell, each won acting awards at the Venice Film Festival. Lumet was nommed by the DGA for his deft direction which, without changing a word of dialogue, subtly transforms O’Neill’s concentration from the father played by Richardson to the mother played by Hepburn, just by the manner in which he places his camera.

Hepburn’s final collaboration with Tracy (who died shortly after filming was completed) was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. As the liberal parents of daughter Katharine Houghton, Hepburn’s real life niece, the pair must face up to their ideals when their daughter brings home African-American fiancé Sidney Poitier. Dated now, but still memorable for the interplay between Hepburn and Tracy, the film was nominated for a slew of Oscars including Best Picture, Director (Stanley Kramer), Supporting Actor (Cecil Kellaway), Supporting Actress (Beah Richards), Actor (Tracy) and Actress (Hepburn). Hepburn finally won her second Oscar on her tenth nomination.

The Lion in Winter provides Hepburn with one of her best roles as Eleanor of Aquitane. It’s the power of the performances of Hepburn and Peter O’Toole as Henry II that set this one apart. It is so superior to the TV remake with Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart that it makes the later, word-for-word copy, look like a remake of King Richard and the Crusaders or some other inferior film. Hepburn won her third Oscar on her eleventh nomination. The film also won Oscars for John Barry’s score and James Goldman’s screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Director (Anthony Harvey), Actor (O’Toole) and Costume Design (Margaret Furse).

The Glass Menagerie is a made-for-TV production re-uniting Hepburn with director Harvey. Though criticized in some circles for being too dominant to play Amanda, Hepburn’s Emmy-nominated performance is superior in my estimation to both Gertrude Lawrence’s performance in the 1950 screen version and Joanne Woodward’s in the 1987 version. Joanna Miles as Laura and Michael Moriarty as the Gentleman Caller won Emmys for their fine performances and Sam Waterston as Tom was nominated as well. Harvey received a DGA nomination.

One of Hepburn’s last big screen performances, On Golden Pond is a character study about an elderly couple played by Hepburn and Henry Fonda, was conceived as the film to finally win Fonda an Oscar, which it did. Surprisingly, Hepburn won one too, her fourth on her twelfth nomination, an acting record on both counts. The film won a total of ten nominations including Best Supporting Actress (Jane Fonda) and Best Director (Mark Rydell). It also won Ernest Thompson an Oscar for adapting his own stage play in addition to the ones won by its two stars.

To date only Meryl Streep has broken her record for nominations.

No one has matched her number of acting Oscars.

Peter J. Patrick (May 29, 2007)

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(May 20)

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Top 10 Sales of the Week

(May 13)

  1. Because I Said So
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  4. Night at the Museum
  5. Catch and Release
  6. The Queen
  7. Deja Vu
  8. Happily N’Ever After
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